Correspondent told of Venezuela struggles

MIAMI — Scott Smith, a correspondent for the Associated Press who traveled across Venezuela to document personal stories of desperation and hope in the troubled country, died Thursday at Stanford Medical Center in Palo Alto, his family said. He was 50.

Smith was diagnosed in February with brain cancer and was evacuated from the capital, Caracas, in a rare show of cooperation between the U.S. and Venezuelan governments amid the coronavirus pandemic and a strict American ban on all flights to the country in place since 2019.

Smith arrived in Caracas in 2017 amid a wave of deadly anti-government unrest spurred in part by growing pressure from the Trump administration, which was seeking to force President Nicolas Maduro from power.

Smith’s easygoing demeanor, boundless curiosity and immense pride at being a foreign correspondent won him the trust and respect of government supporters and opponents alike.

“Even while sick, he was asking when he could go back to Caracas or what his onward assignment might be elsewhere in the world once better,” said Ian Phillips, the Associated Press’ head of international news.

Smith looked through the polarizing rhetoric of Venezuela’s political crisis and gave voice to all he encountered: oil-covered fishermen eking out a hellacious existence in a polluted lake, street gangsters hurt by the rising price of bullets or the families of victims of a fire at an overcrowded prison.

He also eschewed facile explanations for the nation’s woes.

For all the humor, he took on challenging assignments with an understated bravery.

A story on COVID patients at a hospital mirroring the nation’s ruinous health care system required putting his own well-being on the line way before there was a vaccine, and with few means of leaving Venezuela if he had gotten sick.

His last Associated Press article revealed the previously unknown saga of Carlos Marron, an exiled businessman lured back home by his father’s kidnapping only to end up beaten and asphyxiated in one of Maduro’s jails. His alleged crime: running a website that published the blackmarket exchange rate.

Smith joined the Associated Press in 2014, reporting from Fresno, not far from where he grew up. He documented California’s battle with drought and its impacts on farmers and poor communities that struggled as hundreds of wells ran dry.

Before the Associated Press, Smith spent more than a decade at the Record newspaper in Stockton. His reporting on the “Speed Freak” serial killings led authorities to unearth five victims, including the remains of three women.

He volunteered for the Peace Corps after graduating from California State University Chico, where he earned a master’s degree in literature. He was sent to Uzbekistan, then emerging from Soviet rule, where he taught English. Later he ran a non-profit training Uzbek journalists on how to gather news free of government censors. A common love of music — he played trumpet in several bands — endeared him to Hugo Mendez, a taxi driver the Associated Press hired to pick Smith up at the airport upon his arrival in Caracas. Mendez was listening to jazz and Smith took note.

“Miles Davis?” was about all Mendez could understand of Smith’s then-rusty Spanish. Despite the language barrier, within a few hours the two were eating pork rinds and greasy soup at a food stall in one of Caracas’ toughest neighborhoods — Smith betraying none of the nervousness he surely felt in what was then dubbed the world’s most violent city. Over time, he’d develop a deep affection for his new home.

“I thought to myself, this gringo is crazy,” remembers Mendez. “I knew right away we were going to be buddies, but I never thought he’d end up becoming my brother.”

Ariana Cubilos / Associated Press 2017 Scott Smith was trusted by government supporters and opponents.